


No Longer Half of a Pair

by BabblingNerd



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fred Weasley Dies, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Post-Canon, Tumblr Prompt, Weasley Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 23:47:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14904464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BabblingNerd/pseuds/BabblingNerd
Summary: George Weasley spent many years after the war with Voldemort in a messed up tangle of half-finished sentences, jokes without an ending, and silence that stretched too far. He’d only ever needed to fill half, he never had to tell the whole joke. He didn’t even realise how much of himself he had lost at first, he would look to his side halfway through a sentence waiting for someone who wasn’t there to finish it. George didn’t talk a lot during those first few years, not until he had learned how to talk alone.





	No Longer Half of a Pair

George Weasley spent many years after the war with Voldemort in a messed up tangle of half-finished sentences, jokes without an ending, and silence that stretched too far. He’d only ever needed to fill half, he never had to tell the whole joke. He didn’t even realise how much of himself he had lost at first, he would look to his side halfway through a sentence waiting for someone who wasn’t there to finish it. George didn’t talk a lot during those first few years, not until he had learned how to talk alone.

He still wasn’t sure how it happened, why it had happened, because it was never meant to. No matter how long he was alone he would always be part of a pair, still part of a set. They were meant to take over the world together, or at the very least Diagon Alley. They were supposed to grow old in a haze of laughter and fireworks and sentences said by two. They didn’t. They were supposed to. Fate is cruel.

His family never talked about him. There was cold silence every time he flinched at his own reflection or when his sentence stopped before the end and George couldn’t help feeling that there should have been laughter. There should have been words. There should have been more. This isn't what he would have wanted.

It took years to become somewhat whole. To be okay with the idea that there was no Fred and George or George and Fred but just George. There was a single name with no _and_ , but he would never be okay with being an _a_ rather than part of an _and_ , with being a single instead of a pair. He wasn’t used to always being called by his own name, no matter that they had responded to both. Everyone was so very careful to get his name right, to never slip. He almost forgot he used to be called Fred too. The first time someone forgot to be careful, George felt a painful mix of loss and joy. He responded with a quip and made Ginny smile through her apologies and her tears. She always was their favourite, the little sister they promised they’d protect from the world. It’s a pity that they wouldn't be able to protect together.

As years passed George stopped being part of Fred and George and became George and, though it was sometimes nice to have ideas that were just his, he would have preferred never having to finish his sentences. After the war, George picked himself up and learned to stand alone. He fell in love with the girl who had lost what he had lost. Who had lost so much in the war, but hadn’t lost herself. She helped pick him up and put together the broken parts, it turns out even shards are beautiful in the right light. She laughed at jokes with no punchline and understood sentences that never finished; she listened to his silence and understood.

The next time George was part of a pair it was not the same at all. He loved her and she loved him. But she was not a part of him and she couldn’t finish his sentences. They were not two parts of a whole but rather they were two broken parts that fit together to make a whole. It had been a long time, but he was finally happy.

Years later, when George’s hair went grey like Fred’s never got to, he smiled at his reflection, kissed his wife, and walked away from the mirror. He wasn’t part of Fred and George, George and Fred anymore, he wasn’t part of two people that everyone saw as one. But he was himself and he wasn’t alone.


End file.
